[Stealth] A broken mechanic?

TLDR: Can anything be done in 5.2 to 'fix' stealth? Is it even 'broken'? Post your thoughts/answers.
A lot of my guildies and I have recently been discussion Stealth, as a mechanic. Consensus seems to be forming that as a mechanic in WoW it is fundamentally 'broken', that is, its value does not offset its pitfalls.

Many believe the reason for this changes, depending on scenario, but most agree that it has something to do with the core concept as it stands in WoW.

Post in this thread any thoughts you may have to the topic. We would like to hear your thoughts and have your voice sway the conversation.

At this point, this is how I see it.

Stealth (Advantages)Mobility: Move to within range of a target, allowing not only 'first strike' but 'melee range' advantages.Avoidance: Avoid combat altogether using stealth, be it by sneaking past NPCs during Challenge Modes or remaining stealthed as enemy forces ride by in rBGs.

Stealth (Disadvantages)"One Shot": Once stealth is broken and combat is engaged, stealth serves little purpose. You cannot 'control' or 'damage' the enemy purely through 'stealth'. Furthermore, whilst cooldowns exist to get back into stealth during combat, Stealth is generally an 'out of combat' mechanic. Boss fights: Stealth serves no purpose on bosses. None. To date, no real boss mechanics require stealth or truly benefit from it. This makes sense, since, in general, stealth is not a mechanic available to all classes. Similar to 'CC being useless on bosses', after all, you cannot CC a boss.

Stealth in WoW (failures)
One of the core concepts that is discussed, is the failure of stealth specifically in WoW. Other games have successfully incorporated stealth (a well known RPG mechanic) into the game. For example, observe 'stealth' as a concept in The Elder Scrolls (take, Skyrim, for example).

One of the key successes for stealth in Skyrim, is that you do not gain XP from killing NPCs. The reward structure and 'level up' structure of the game is independant of how many monsters you killed. You could go through an entire dungeon and get all the available XP, without killing a single mob.
Obviously, this allows for a much deeper 'stealth' game.
However, in WoW at a fundamental level, you need to kill something to progress. The game is focused and balanced around this. However, such fundamental ideas may perhaps then impact the version of 'stealth' that can be implemented in WoW. Hence, the argument.

Solutions:Upgrade Stealth: Upgrade stealth as a core mechanic. Make it do something else or overhaul it in some way. This is probably a long term goal (next expo level)Upgrade Boss fights: Upgrade encounter design to be more 'complex', allowing (for example) multiple routes to the goal. Imagine a boss fight that requires a 'stealth team' consisting (perhaps) of druids and rogs. Tanks (as we know) are already 'requirements' for boss fights (similarly are healers) since they make up the 'holy trinity'. Expanding this 'requirement' will allow certain other 'mechanics' to shine, for example, stealth (and perhaps, on a different axis, control).

So far, neither of these solutions can work today, since, they are things that can only happen at a 'massive overhaul' level. It is partly due to this fact that consensus is building amongst my guildies. They just do not see it as something that can work anymore, at least, till next expansion.

TLDR: Can anything be done in 5.2 to 'fix' stealth? Is it even 'broken'? Post your thoughts/answers.

I wouldn't call tying a rubber band around a controller stick and in doing so forcing your character to sneak indefinitely into a corner, then walking away to go other things deep. Not that I have ever done that or anything...

I think in WoW, openers from stealth have become a bit less powerful and are not particularly exciting which is a shame.

Cheapshot is useless in Raiding and sometimes undesirable in PvP due to the DR with Kidney Shot
Sap is the same and has good use in pvp and some, limited, pve applications
Garrotte is not used as assassination as it does not stack with rupture for venomous wounds and its damage is not very high, silence effect is useful in PvP
Ambush's damage does not feel meaningful

Honestly the class has never felt as engaging in PvP as when an ambush critical hit or a stunlock was almost necessary to land a kill, I felt like a rogue - it was exciting to press ambush and backstab back then.

I'm sorry for saying this, but just after reading that you didn't like stealth, i was sure it's a pve post.

I agree, stealth isn't that cool in pve, unless you're subtletly. There, restealthing (vanish) = find weakness, which is amazing for burst, so you'd usually pair vanish/shadow blades i suppose - thats what i do in pvp, anyway.

But removing stealth? that would destroy rogues in pvp. The rogue class is awesome because it has the stealth, the restealths, the vanishes and the reopeners, and that's why the few of us that are left probably even stick to our rogues. We can kill any class if we just get these restealths up and keep reopening on them with CDs, untill they die.

Sap>Gouge>Blind>Vanish>Sap is the only reason I need stealth for. Oh and so I don't get seen at 30 yards and insta-gibbed by everything. The benefits of stealth aren't really measurable since they're about debilitating enemy awareness of your actions.

Well, it seems a bit easier to be detected nowadays and getting knocked out of stealth due to a DoT is extremely annoying. However, as a mechanic it's fine. Vanish could use a bit of work--it just seems things see me when I vanish with an alarming rate.

Stealth is not the problem with rogues, it's one of our cool abilities. It doesn't need a purpose with bosses. And I don't like the idea of a stealth gimmick. Or rather, I *do* like the idea provided other classes can benefit in a specific encounter through a raid provided "buff". And classes that actually have stealth have an advantage in this fight. But aside from a particular encounter design, I don't think we need a special purpose for stealth.

Just to clarify, no one is eluding to ever wanting to "remove" stealth altogether. While some might say stealth might be broken or need some changes, I do not believe anyone has said that it should be removed and replaced overall.

The debate is surrounding whether stealth alone is a big enough deal to be such a 'core' feature of the rogue class. Could it be improved? Does it even need improvement? If it does, then what shape will that improvement take?

While its benefits might not outweigh its flaws, it still has benefits. The only reason to remove something from the game is if it serves no purpose at all.

Obviously, in PvP, the value of stealth is a little more pronounced, but there is just such a massive disparity between PvP and PvE (not just with 'stealth' but with other mechanics such as CC) that we believe it warrants a deeper investigation into seeing how we can consolidate the power of such mechanics in all aspects of play.

After all, if you remove stealth from rogues, what do you really have left? A cheap warrior?

A dps increase in pve with a opener and also with the use of Vanish/PrepVanish + Shadow Focus.
No energy cost abilities. Mostly noticeable with Muti's

Critical in Pvp. For obvious reasons

Take away stealth and you have a class that has nothing to bring to the table.
Might as well remove them from game.

Against Stealth:

Once you are out of stealth.
You are either ignored in pvp or nuked down becoz you are AFK(pvp).
Very little classes have trouble killing a rogue NoCD's vs NoCD's.
If we couldnt restealth. Then it would be THE WORST PVP Class <--- Not even joking.
Only CC we bring to arena's lately that can turn the tide is... Blind/Resap

I wouldn't call tying a rubber band around a controller stick and in doing so forcing your character to sneak indefinitely into a corner, then walking away to go other things deep. Not that I have ever done that or anything...

or you can just press C, that's auto-walk
I love stealth, but feel it works better in skyrim. Even while engaged in combat, you can still stealth. Well, except against dragons, those flying bastards. Maybe invisi pot when it lands? But back on topic, I don't know how this can be applied to wow without people claiming op.
A long time ago, I was hesitant to play rogue. I was more pve oriented back then, and felt stealth was redundant on boss fights. Nowadays, I use vanish while fighting a boss for a free mutilate, but I'd like for steath to be more useful that that. And if blizz would fix stealth in pvp, as in randomly exiting it, that'd be great.

Originally Posted by Vaerys

Gaze upon the field in which I grow my fucks, and see that it is barren.

Stealth lets you do fun, sometimes almost broken things, without jeopardizing the overall game experience for anyone. (And is an 8 year class defining ability with huge depth of flavour). Don't see what you're trying to achieve by changing it.

To address your proposed solution: if stealthing is necessary (or optimal) to beat and encounter, you're actively advocating for class stacking and favouritism; if not optimal then, simply, no one would bother.

I think a much more pressing matter is the removed aggro reset on Vanish, turning it from a bailout mechanism into a (very) marginal DPS cooldown.

You're wrong about the Skyrim stuff. You get a HUGE XP bonus for killing people while stealthed in Skyrim. So, actually, you would level up way faster by killing everyone in the dungeon through stealth. Additionally, Stealth is also grossly overpowered in Skyrim (especially compared to for example Morrowind), whereas WoW's implimentation of stealth is more balanced. I know it's a bit like comparing apples to oranges, but my point is that saying Skyrim does stuff well in the Stealth department is not really a valid point. A) it's single player, and B) stealth is overpowered in Skyrim. It's not a good role model to use.

Imo, Stealth in WoW is fine. They could bring back something like the Suppression Room in Blackwing Lair (but less annoying). Bossfights where a Rogue/Druid/Hunter could stealth behind enemy lines to fire Catapults at the boss or something. Make more use of Pickpocket and Trap Disarms.

Stealth lets you do fun, sometimes almost broken things, without jeopardizing the overall game experience for anyone. (And is an 8 year class defining ability with huge depth of flavour). Don't see what you're trying to achieve by changing it.

To address your proposed solution: if stealthing is necessary (or optimal) to beat and encounter, you're actively advocating for class stacking and favouritism; if not optimal then, simply, no one would bother.

I think a much more pressing matter is the removed aggro reset on Vanish, turning it from a bailout mechanism into a (very) marginal DPS cooldown.

I wouldnt really call it class stacking, how many classes can tank? Warrior, DK, druid, pally, monk. Thats five. How many can heal? Priest, pally, druid, monk, shaman. Five also. Druids, rogues, hunters, and mages (kinda) all have stealth/invis. Its not like stealth is a rogue only thing anymore...

I never heal, so I may be missing a healer lol

Also, what raidgroup doesnt use bloodlust? Only three classes supply that, and the hunter needs a specific pet to do so. This would give rogues a chance to be useful in pve, we currently have an attackspeed buff and thats it. No other raid buffs. No raid CDs. As a class, we really dont bring much to the table for raiding.

Last edited by Evi1Toad; 2013-01-07 at 01:41 AM.

Why is there no "Demonhunter" hero class yet? He was only the coolest hero in WC3. Get busy Blizzard.

I honestly think subtrefuge's 'on damage taken' effect should be baseline. The "hostile action" part is a little OP to be baseline, but a 3 seconds for us to get in there an open, or get to our target on a restealth would be nice. haha

Stealth in Elder Scrolls as an example of the mechanic "done right"? If Skyrim was an MMO almost every player would be finding an almost stationary NPC and auto-walking into the nearest wall. In WoW, I don't think most players (non rogues) have an issue with the mechanic itself, but with Vanish which is effectively a free reset on the rogue's terms; as for rogues I imagine their issue with stealth is the devaluation of their openers which at the moment are lackluster to say the least. Steath itself as a mechanic is fine in WoW and is certainly a lot better implemented than a few other MMOs I've played. I think your basic argument is flawed in that you say Skyrim's mechanics allow a deeper stealth game where ina MMO it would just lead to players cheesing their stealth skill to max and stealth is designed around a levelling rogue where these days a rogue doesn't even need steath while levelling if they keep Recuperate running.